Let's Talk~Summer!

I'm linking up with some people for this blog post.  I love seeing what other people are doing with their time, so if that interests you, go check them out!  Just click here.

Here are some of the things we have going on this summer.

To start us off right, Saturday night was spent with us up late, packing Jonah, Noah and Todd for a week of middle school youth camp.  This year they went back to a place in Kentucky called The Crossings, and it is one of the more memorable camps my older boys went to.  So far they are all having fun, even if they did have to endure through watching High School Musical on the bus ride there.

Here was us Saturday night, helping Todd get organized for his week as a counselor.

I was bugging him so bad while he did this.  I love teasing him and messing around with him.  He pretends to get all huffy about me bugging him, but secretly he loves it.  He said that at that moment, he would not miss me while he was gone.  He was kidding.  He's not that dumb.

Jonah's face in the background.  Is that not hilarious?  He's been a mess lately.  All of a sudden, he loves to appear in pictures, but only as one photobombing.

So, camp is happening all summer.  Theirs is this week, while Graham's and Drew's is mid July.  For their camp, they are back at the beach.  This year they are at Daytona beach, and their speaker is David Platt.  You read right.  Can you even imagine?  I cannot.  It's going to be awesome!

Another camp that we do as a family usually is kids camp, but this year we're skipping that.  Too much other stuff is going on.  I think Graham might go as part of the tech team, and Drew might as well, but I'm not and Jonah and Noah are not.  That will be strange, not going.  I've been a counselor there every summer since Jonah and Noah completed second grade.  That's how long we've been at our church.  Five years now.  Hard to believe!

I also look forward to lazy days spent reading, preferably by the pool, this summer.  My place of choice to spend time browsing?

My happy place.

I look forward to (prayerfully) being able to go as a counselor for high school camp again this year.  I've only been once before, which was last summer.  I'd planned on going the year before, but my surgery happened and I wasn't recovered enough to go.  Here was the group that went last year.  I was the one taking the picture.

Bunch of crazies.  I love these people so much.

A fun time was had at Ridgecrest camp in North Carolina last summer.

I look forward to spending time with these lovelies.

Going to dinner, or lunch, movies, having movie nights at one of our houses, swimming, singing songs with them, just laughing and spending time with them in general.  This was us going to Jerry's snow cones Friday night in the church bus.

I love ANY and ALL time spent with these ones.

I look forward to swimming with my mom-in-love.  Tomorrow is the first day we'll be going to swim together, and I can't wait!  I need some vitamin D!  The sun always clears up my dry skin.  I have no idea why or how that works, but I'm looking forward to spending time with her, catching up.  I feel like I haven't seen her in forever.

Every summer our youth has inner city mission type trip called Street Reach.  This might be the favorite thing we do all year.  I cannot wait to go again this year!

Here are a couple of pictures from last year.

We go and stay at a school in Memphis, then go out into the surrounding neighborhoods and give bible clubs at sites designated by Street Reach.  That happens after breakfast, from about ten till twelve thirty, then we go back to the Brinkley (the school we sleep at) and eat lunch.  After lunch is a service project each day, except for Wednesday, when we have to be out of the school by three for them to have church there that night.  On that day, we leave and go to a movie, then dinner at Stevie B's, then to a park and back to Brinkley at nine.

I LOVE going to Street Reach!  This may be our last summer going there, so I plan to soak it up while I can.

Other things I look forward to are some traditions we do each year, like walking to our community center park and watching fireworks with our friends, Thursday night summer concerts on the town square, Friday or Saturday nights spent with our friends, picnics and just relaxing.

Because we homeschool, we are going on our family vacation at the end of August, so I look forward to that as well.

It's going to be a great time!  I don't think I ever tire of this season.  As long as there is time to be spent with the ones I love most, I will always look forward to the summer.

Thanks for reading!  Love to all.